Bastion of Souls Encounters d% Encounter Average EL 01–10 1d3 ravids 7 11–25 1d3 young incarnum dragons 9 26–50 1d6 4th-level skarn incarnates and 9 1 skarn fighter 5/spinemeld warrior 1 51–75 2d4 xag-yas 9 76–90 1 juvenile incarnum dragon 9 91–100 1 human paladin 6/incandescent champion 5 11
CR 4
N Medium elemental (incorporeal) Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Listen +0, Spot +4 Languages None AC 17, touch 17, flat-footed 14 hp 27 (5 HD) Immune poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, critical hits, flanking Resist incorporeal Fort +2, Ref +7, Will +1 Speed fly 20 ft. (good) (4 squares) Melee incorporeal touch +6 (1d6 plus positive energy) or Ranged positive energy ray +6 touch (1d8) Base Atk +5; Grp — Atk Options positive energy lash (undead take extra 2d8+5 damage from touch; can heal living creatures for 2d8+5) Special Actions turn undead 5/day (+4, 2d6+9, 5th) , explosion Abilities Str —, Dex 17, Con 12, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 18 SQ cannot be raised or resurrected Feats Combat Reflexes, Extra Turning Skills Hide +7, Spot +4 Explosion (Su) When reduced to 0 hp, a xag-ya’s body is destroyed in an explosion of positive energy that deals 1d8+9 points of damage to everyone in a 20foot-radius burst (Fort DC 16 half).
THE PENTIFEX ORDER
“This is the tale that the caste mothers tell, in their camps under the star-shadows of the dolmens, when night is deep on the world and dawn is far away. “In the beginning, fourteen archmagi sacrificed seventeen eyes to bring incarnum to our world. With these precious drams of eternal soulstuff, they hedged in the encroaching Ravener, and so the Starved Age began.
CHAPTER 8
Xag-Ya (Energon)
Dedicated to policing the use and abuse of incarnum in the world, the Pentifex Order is an example of an incarnumrelated organization with potential appeal to characters of any race, class, and even alignment. The lost are their favored enemies, and necrocarnates their sworn foes. Under the banner of preventing the misuse of incarnum, the Pentifex Order draws incarnates, soulborn, and totemists alongside clerics, paladins, wizards, fighters, and rogues (to name but a few) to join in their vital mission.
INCARNUM CAMPAIGNS
is only 60%. If the PCs fail to visit the location for more than a year, they must roll for encounters as if they had never visited the site. Base Ability: You gain 1 point of essentia. (See the Planar Touchstone sidebar, which describes the feat needed to gain abilities from planar touchstones.) Recharge Condition: Immerse yourself in the flowing stream of soul-stuff. Higher-Order Ability: When you activate this ability, you can bind one additional soulmeld or magic item to one of your available chakras, exceeding your normal limit of simultaneous chakra binds. This chakra bind lasts for 1 day. Higher-Order Uses: 1.
“The first living creature of Incarnum was a duskling fey, born of a ewe and a shower of moonlight. This was Ilvit, called the Opener, and so the Fecund Age began. “The last living creature of Incarnum shall be the daughter of the encroaching Ravener, hedged and proud. She will gather all the lost and make of them a scourge to flay the land. And so the gyre turns, and so the stars dim. “Children, guard the ancient sites and hunt the lost, that the scourge falls lightly when it comes.” —Meredythe Gorvabyn, Pentifex Monolith
JOINING THE PENTIFEX ORDER The Pentifex Order stands ready to embrace anyone who will take up its cause and prove loyal to its goals. The only absolute prerequisite for joining the order is having an essentia pool. The order doesn’t care whether you have that pool by virtue of belonging to an incarnum race, taking levels in a meldshaping class, or taking incarnum feats. Entry Requirements: Essentia pool 1. The Pentifex Order maintains a large force of loose affi liates and a much smaller core of initiates ranked in a strict hierarchy. Most of the highest-ranking members of the order are incarnates, with a few soulborn in the mix. The lower levels of the hierarchy include characters of all classes who aid the goals of the order simply by doing whatever they do best—putting their particular skills and talents to use in battling the lost and thwarting the schemes of necrocarnates. When a character is accepted as an affiliate member of the Pentifex Order, she receives basic training in the nature of the lost and effective means to recognize and combat them. Further training is not necessary unless the character requests it, until such time as she is ready to advance into the upper hierarchy of the order.
PENTIFEX ORDER BENEFITS The primary concern of the Pentifex Order is controlling dangerous incarnum, and the order does everything it can, with its limited resources, to assist those who are engaged in that work. Goods: The Pentifex Order has few material resources to spare, especially for affiliate members. For initiates into the higher ranks of the order, however, they provide armor and weapons of a peculiar brushed-gold color that carries hints of red and brown. These serve as a badge of membership and authority within the order. These weapons and armor are made of a metal called pentifex, which is functionally equivalent to steel, distinguished only by its unique appearance. The order trades pentifex magic weapons and armor for otherwise identical steel ones at no cost to the initiate.
209
